CALCIUM SCORE ANALYSIS

Houston Medical Imaging LLC is a proud sponsor of the Institute of Hispanic Culture of Houston.

For a donation of $150, HMI will perform a Calcium Score Analysis at no additional charge. When your donation is received, you will be contacted for scheduling. Please provide a referring physician or physician order, this report will be sent to your physician and you will have personal online access to the results.

Introduction:

Computed tomography, or CT, uses a special machine to obtain multiple x-ray images of the body. Cardiac CT is a non-invasive, low radiation technique of obtaining information about the location and extent of calcified plaque in the coronary vessels. A calcium risk score is generated.

Major risk factors for coronary artery disease are:

High blood cholesterol

Family history of heart disease

Diabetes mellitus

High blood pressure

Smoking

Obesity

Scoring is as follows:

0 - No evidence of plaque

1-10 - Minimal plaque.

11-100 - Mild plaque

101-400 - Moderate plaque

>400 - Extensive plaque

The risks of the procedure are primarily that of a limited amount of radiation. Insurance generally does not reimburse this procedure. Finally, this test does not detect soft plaque, a precursor to hard or calcified plaque, and thus does not exclude the presence of coronary artery disease with 100% confidence.

Precautions:

Please notify the technologist if you are pregnant.

Your cardiac CT calcium scoring exam:

Prior to your exam, you will be asked to sign an informed consent form.

The technologist begins by positioning the you on the CT table. As the study proceeds, the table will move slowly into the CT scanner. The CT portion of the scan is performed during breath-holding.

The exam will take less than five minutes to complete.

After the exam a report will be faxed to your physician, generally within 24 hours.